REFLECTIONS OF THE HEART

REFLECTIONS OF THE HEART

As she walked down the road in her small hometown, she looked around her. Almost everything was gone or destroyed beyond repair. Buildings had crumbled and collapsed, leaving the once peaceful Southern landscape a war-torn tragedy. The war, if you want to call it that, only lasted four days and completely incapacitated the United States. They took the country without warning and by storm. Whatever they were. Some say aliens, others say robots, some of the ignorant still attempting to hold on to the old reality say it was the Russians, I say it was God who was not happy with what he saw and finally had enough. Initially there was only one of them. I watched the footage over and over on my Grandmas Television. It was all that was on every station. I think the same people who destroyed the country purposely left the cable and internet intact so we could see what was going on. They were showoffs and everyone was compelled to watch.

The man, tall, tan, and muscular with dark hair and menacing Hazel eyes walked into the White House and directly up to the oval office without the slightest hint of detection. It was as if he was invisible. He opened the door to the Oval Office, and still undetected by the Secret Service, snatched the president out of his chair, and flew through the window behind them like it was not even there. The Secret Service agents never made a move. It was as if they were oblivious to the entire scene.

As the man flew with The President through the open sky another figure emerged down from the heavens. This time it was a woman. She swooped swiftly down through the air spinning like a fighter jet until she caught up with the man. The man was soaring, flying fast and smooth with The President dangling from one arm, crying and holding on for dear life. The woman finally caught up with the man and taking his open arm they flew through the sky hand in hand.

By this point people had noticed both the president’s disappearance and the two figures flying through the air with him. No one had actually seen a thing. We had to rely on video surveillance and news footage in order to see what was happening until the war broke out. The military was put on high alert. Rescue teams and fighter jets geared up to save The President. As the first jet appeared behind the couple the woman looked back at it with a look of pity. She cut her eyes to the right and almost exactly in sync the jet moved to the right with them. The woman slowly moved her head in the downward position and the jet followed suit, losing control and spiraling to the ground.

As the day progressed an army never before seen by the likes of man kind emerged from the sky. There were millions of them. All indestructible. All carrying a seemingly endless supply of nuclear arms. By the end of the fourth day the world as we knew it was gone. The president, who was once such a charismatic character was returned to the White House a shell of a man. He barely spoke and when he did his words seemed scripted. He tried his best to hang on and reassure the American people that everything would be alright. The “army of supermen”, as one news channel dubbed them, disappeared back into the sky without a scratch. Most agree that the army was not needed, that the man and woman flying through the sky with the president could have done just as much destruction in the same amount of time.

The little girl, Sara was her name, continued to walk and check out the canvas of destruction left behind by the war. Radiation filled the air. People were beginning to act strange. As Sara strolled down the road, she noticed something bright and shiny up ahead lying on the ground. She ran to check it out. It was a heart shaped locket. She bent down to pick it up. As she inspected the locket, she liked what she saw. It was gold, tarnished a bit from the dirt but still held its glamour. It was attached to an equally impressive golden chain. She opened the locket. On the inside of both sides was a mirror. She looked in the mirror on the right side and was amazed at what she saw. She looked older than her fifteen years of age. If Sara had to guess she would say she looked twenty-five. She was beautiful in the reflection. She was already a confident and pretty girl she thought. Exceedingly kind, gentle, and caring toward others. She was not shy but a little standoffish. People had to earn her trust. Still in shock from what she saw in the reflection Sara looked in the mirror on the left side of the locket. If the right side shocked her the left side floored her dead. As soon as she looked in the left mirror, she saw herself as she was but another figure began to quickly emerge. It was as if she was transforming into something else before her very eyes. As she continued to stare Sara’s reflection transformed into a tiger. A big, beautiful striped tiger with a healthy glare in her eyes. Sara was in awe. She took a deep breath and quickly closed the locket.

She took off running in the opposite direction toward town. There were people gathered everywhere. Volunteers and the like cleaning up the mess, going through the ruins, and some poor people even looking for lost loved ones who seemed to vanish without a trace after the war. She saw a crowd of people ahead. She stopped to catch her breath. She wanted to make sure she was not crazy before she showed another person the locket. She pulled it out of her pocket and opened it up. Sure enough, the same exact thing as she saw before, a beautiful reflection of her ten years older on the right side and a tiger on the left. She caught her breath and walked up to the crowd looking for a familiar face.

Sara instantly spotted Jake, a boy in her ninth-grade class. Jake spotted her back and smiled. He was a Sara fan. Sara also liked Jake. She smiled back. She ran to him and grabbed him by the arm pulling him away from the crowd. “Jake come here,” she said excitedly. Jake went with her without argument. “I want you to look inside this locket and tell me what you see,” she said without any explanation. Jake took the locket and opened it up. Sara watched for a reaction. She got one. Jakes eyes went as wide as saucers. When he opened the locket, he looked into the right-side mirror and his face instantly changed from that of a handsome fifteen-year-old boy to an even handsomer thirty something year old man. He gasped. He looked to the left and could not believe what he saw. There, in the mirror, was Jake as he had come to know himself. His reflection instantly began to change. It began to transform to that of a Lion. A lion with a huge head, silky mane of saturated, bright, sun-soaked yellow hair, and long, thick, white glistening teeth. Sara moved around behind him to see what he saw. She saw the same. “What does yours look like,” Jake asked her. She showed him. “What do you think it is?”, he asked. “I think that when we look into the mirror it shows us who we really are, what we have in us,” she said. Jake grinned. “Both of ours is good,” he said in a boyish southern drawl. About that time Tommy Hardin, the school bully approached the two of them. Tommy was a mean one but had always gotten along with both Sara and Jake. “What ya’ll got there?” he asked. Jake and Sara looked at each other and shared a knowing smile. “It’s a locket that Sara found,” said Jake. “Take a look.” He handed Tommy the locket. Tommy looked inside and what he saw stunned him. On the right side his sixteen-year-old face transformed to that of a wrinkled sixty-year-old man. On the left his figure mutated into a wrinkled, red-nosed pit bulldog with snarling teeth and a slobbery mouth. Sara and Jake went around as he stared into the locket. They were not surprised. “Where did you get this thing Sara?” asked Tommy. “I found it lying on the ground,” she said. “I wonder where it come from?” Tommy asked. Jake became excited. “I bet one of the supermen dropped it, probably one of the leaders, either the man that stole The President or the woman that was crashing all the jets,” Jake said, almost out of breath with excitement. The three of them smiled at one another. They were satisfied with the explanation. “You know what?” Sara said in a proud tone. “What,” the two boys answered. “Since I found it, it’s my God-given duty to have people look in it and find out who they really are,” she said. “What if they’re watching and they begin to punish people?” Tommy asked, “What if they punish you if you don’t show people and get them to look in it?” Jake asked Sara. “Oh, you bet your behind I’m gonna follow instructions,” she said, “you see what they can do when they’re mad,” she finished. The three of them looked around at the mess the army had left. “They aren’t the bad guys,” said Tommy. “They came here to punish the bad guys and everyone else was just friendly fire,” said Jake. “Well now they’re about to find out who the bad guys really are,” Sara said. “Ya’ll gonna help or what?” she questioned them both. “Yes,” they said in unison. And there they were. The three of them had a duty and were off to begin judgement day. One face at a time.